Name: Ad House Advertising
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Case Study: TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising

Overview

In today’s highly competitive marketing landscape, businesses often face a pivotal decision: whether to invest in TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising. Should your company explore the growing potential of streaming advertising, commonly referred to as CTV or OTT? These terms, standing for Connected TV and Over-the-Top, respectively, refer to video advertisements integrated into streaming content viewed on-demand. While Broadcast TV ads and OTT/CTV ads share certain similarities, an increasing number of businesses are gravitating towards streaming ads as a more effective way to achieve their marketing goals. At Ad House Advertising, we leverage decades of expertise to help businesses navigate these options and craft marketing strategies that deliver measurable results.

Today, Ad House Advertising is helping clients maximize their return on investment (ROI) by transitioning many from traditional Prime Time TV commercials to highly targeted digital campaigns through CTV/OTT advertising.

Overview

Creative Example

With nearly all U.S. households now subscribing to at least one streaming service, this shift enables businesses to engage more specific audiences while optimizing their marketing budgets. Let’s delve into the advantages and challenges of each advertising platform and explore how we achieve exceptional outcomes for our clients through strategic, data-driven campaigns.

Ad House Advertising: Experts in OTT/CTV Ads

At Ad House Advertising, we create strategies that use the power of Broadcast TV and OTT/CTV advertising. Because we have decades of experience placing both types of ads, we know which best fits your company’s goals. Our media plans focus on reaching your audience to deliver measurable results. Whether you want to build brand awareness with broadcast TV ads or use OTT/CTV ads to reach specific audiences, we have the expertise to create a campaign tailored to your needs.

TV Advertising: The Pros and Cons

Pros of TV Advertising

Traditional broadcast television advertising continues to be part of a powerful marketing campaign for many businesses due to its ability to reach viewers and to create a lasting impact. Despite the rise of digital platforms, traditional broadcast and cable TV ads retain key advantages that make them effective for building brand awareness and trust.

Broadcast TV commercials can reach a mass audience, sometimes thousands, even millions, of viewers at once. TV is ideal for increasing brand awareness among diverse demographics. While cable TV audiences are smaller, they provide opportunities for niche targeting based on specific networks.
High-quality broadcast television commercials frequently evoke strong emotional responses. The combination of visuals, music, and storytelling in strong TV ads creates a strong emotional impact. This emotional appeal fosters brand recall and loyalty. The effectiveness of video storytelling also translates seamlessly to CTV/OTT streaming platforms.
Companies advertising on broadcast TV are often seen as established and trustworthy by consumers. This enhanced credibility boosts brand perception and can increase customer confidence.

Cons of TV Advertising

While traditional broadcast television advertising remains a valuable component of many marketing strategies, it is not without its limitations. High production and placement costs, limited targeting capabilities, and the challenge of measuring precise ROI can make TV advertising less appealing for businesses with smaller budgets or niche audiences. As digital platforms continue to offer more cost-effective and data-driven alternatives, some businesses may find traditional TV advertising less efficient for reaching their specific marketing goals.

Advertising budgets for TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising campaigns can be high. Because many viewers are not your highest-potential targeted audience, you must have a high reach (number of viewers) and frequency (enough commercials) to make an impact. This makes broadcast TV ads less accessible for smaller businesses with limited resources.
Broadcast and cable TV ads don’t offer the same level of precise targeting as digital ads. TV campaigns tend to reach a wide audience, which includes people who may not be interested in your product or service. This can result in wasted impressions, leading to a lower return on investment.
Broadcast and cable TV ads are not the place to find younger demographics today. With the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, traditional TV viewership is in decline—especially among those under age 50. Businesses that want to reach a younger audience will find digital advertising to be more effective.
Ads can also be placed on Cable TV channels, reaching customers via hard-wired cable subscriptions or satellite-delivered systems like DirecTV or Dish. However, these providers have faced sharp declines in subscribers, as viewers move to streaming providers (both free and paid platforms).

Traditional TV vs OTT/CTV Ads from Ad House Advertising

image showing graph of TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising results for TV values

Broadcast Television

$5,000 Budget for Adult Intenders Aged 35-64

Demographic 437,680 Viewers

65,652 Potential “In Market” Viewers
(Estimated 15% of all viewers*)

530 Estimated Website Visits, Mobile Calls, Form Submissions**

*Online sources reference 5% to 25% purchase intent of viewers. **Based on avg 4 mo of broadcast buys in ABQ/SF DMA, July-Dec 2024, Demo CPM. Automotive vertical. Estimated visits/calls/forms is percentage of website visits vs digital impressions in 90 days for Est Conv rate, applied to Estimated In Market Viewers

OTT/CTV Advertising: Gains & Risks

Pros of Streaming OTT/CTV Advertising

Streaming ads allow businesses to target their exact target audiences based on age, location, interests, behaviors, and even recent online activity. This level of targeting lets us reduce wasted impressions and ensures that your ads are being shown to people who are most likely to convert into customers. Other advantages include:

Cost-effectiveness: Unlike TV ads, where you pay for airtime regardless of how many people respond, we direct digital ads directly to your most likely customers. Typically our campaigns for OTT/CTV video ads run about $0.03 to $0.05 cents per targeted view!
Real time data and analytics: Digital ads provide real-time feedback. If an ad isn’t performing well, we make immediate adjustments to improve its effectiveness.
Granular targeting: Whether you need to focus on a zip code, a life stage, or a consumer researching a particular product, we finely match the research to target potential customers, then turn them into paying clients.

Cons of OTT/CTV Advertising

Frankly, we don’t find many cons with digital advertising in how to effectively market a company. We do find two issues with how some ads are delivered and work to mitigate these concerns:

Thresholds for frequency. OTT/CTV ads should be programmed by the digital agency to not over-deliver to the same user. If you’ve watched a streaming program and seen the same video ad play repeatedly in a short period of time, it creates ad fatigue in the viewer. At Ad House Advertising, we work to set appropriate frequencies so viewers aren’t bombarded with the same message.
Since the streaming platforms aren’t limited by the traditional broadcast TV station’s length of commercial breaks, some platforms are extending the number of the streaming ads that play. It is now common to observe ad breaks exceeding three minutes on Hulu and similar platforms. In time, we expect that this will self-regulate.

With so many platforms and ways to format OTT/CTV advertising, businesses can find it difficult to determine the best approach. That’s where our expertise at Ad House comes in, helping clients select the right channels and strategies.

OTT/CTV vs Traditional TV Ads from Ad House Advertising

image showing graph of TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising results for digital values

Digital Video/OTT Streaming

$5,000 Budget for In Market Intenders

Demographic 310,366 Viewers

248,393 Potential “In Market” Viewers
(Estimated 80% of targeted users*)

2,006 Estimated Website Visits, Mobile Calls, Form Submissions**

*Based on a 3 mo of Digital Video/OTT Streaming in ABQ/SF DMA, May-July 2024 to In-Market for New Vehicle. In Market Estimate is 80% of targeted ads served. **Visits/calls/forms is percentage of website visits vs digital impressions in 90 days for Est Conv rate, applied to Estimated In Market Viewers

The Situation: What Does $5,000 in Advertising Get You?

Now that we’ve explored the pros and cons of TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising, so let’s take a closer look at what a budget can produce in each medium. At Ad House Advertising, we measure success in leads that drive sales– primarily phone calls, form submissions and store visits.
Our client had run both digital OTT/CTV campaigns and traditional TV ads to build brand awareness. We calculated the potential leads from each medium as best we could. Our findings are as follows.

Leads from Television Ads

While TV ads were effective at reaching a large audience—an estimated 437,680 viewers in a month—those viewers include many who are not currently in-market. In this business vertical, we estimated that 15% of the market could be in the purchase funnel. That meant about 65,652 potential “in-market” viewers. Using the client’s overall website analytics, we estimate that about 530 website visits, mobile calls, and form submissions would tie to the television ads. This highlights the importance of targeting strategies that focus on reaching audiences with a higher intent to purchase.

Leads from Digital Ads

Ad House Advertising created OTT/CTV campaigns with precise targeting and real-time data. Comparing the same $5,000 budget, we found OTT/CTV video ads were seen by 310,366 targeted in-market viewers. We estimated that 80% of these were in-market now, which is likely underestimating the audience. That pool of interested viewers was then more than 248,000 key prospects, much more than broadcast TV’s potential. Using the same criteria as for the broadcast TV viewers, we estimated more than 2,000 potential customers to the website for the $5,000 budget.

Results

686% Increase

OTT/CTV campaigns resulted in an impressive 686% surge in website visits from potential customers

Improved ROI

ROI improved significantly with a 3.8x increase due to precise targeting and data-driven strategies.

Little Ad Waste

Minimal ad waste ensured the budget was spent effectively, reaching 248,293 in-market viewers.

Summary

In advertising, a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work. At Ad House Advertising, we understand that every business is unique, which is why we offer custom strategies tailored to your specific goals and audience. Starting at just $1,000 per month, we create campaigns that maximize your budget while delivering measurable results. If you’re ready to elevate your marketing strategy and reach your ideal customers, contact us today. Let us craft a personalized campaign designed to fit your goals and drive success.

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Case Study: TV Advertising vs. Digital Advertising